Typically, a shoe or other article of footwear is secured about the foot of a wearer using a lacing structure. Commonly, a tying lace, such as a shoe string or lace, is used to bring together two portions of the footwear that allow the foot to enter the interior of the footwear. For example, in a traditional athletic shoe, a forefoot opening extends between a medial side and a lateral side of an upper portion of the shoe. A tying lace may extend across the forefoot opening, in this example, to bring the medial side and the lateral side of the upper together, which secures the shoe to the foot. However, the tying lace may loosen or completely untie as a result of the tying lace slipping through the knot intended to maintain tension in the tying lace.
Wearers (e.g., children) of shoes may have a difficult time tightening the tying lace sufficiently to prevent this slipping from occurring. However, adding an additional tying force may not prevent the tying lace from becoming loose or untied. Instead, as the knot of the tying lace loosens, a traditional lace may continue to untie because the traditional lace may not adapt in cross-sectional area to the force being applied nor may the traditional lace have an outer cover with a protrusion surface and a baseline surface that interact to resist slippage.